HAWAII FIVE-0 1.18 ‘Loa Aloha’

Danny's little brother comes to town, with the feds in hot pursuit.

by Hilary Rothing Feb 22nd, 2011

Episode Title: "Loa Aloha"

Writers: Paul Zbyszewski and Mike Schaub

Director: Eric Laneuville

Story:

After a judge’s daughter is killed on a zip line, the team is called in to investigate. Meanwhile, Danny’s brother Matt (Dane Cook), a hedge fund manager, comes in to town for an unexpected visit. Danny (Scott Caan) and McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin) soon discover that Matt is being tailed by the FBI in a fraud investigation.

McGarrett and Kono (Grace Park) meet with a prosecutor to get a copy of the threat file for the judge. Later, the lawyer says goodbye to his son after meeting him for lunch. Moments later, the young man’s car explodes. Kono shows the team pictures from cameras she confiscated at the scene of the explosion. The team narrows in on a suspect, a criminal whose son, given hard time by the judge for a DUI, was murdered in prison. Chin Ho (Daniel Dae Kim) and McGarrett meet with the suspect’s ex-wife and soon realize who the next target is.

After talking with Rachel (Claire van deer Boom), Danny confronts Matt about the FBI investigation. He comes clean about stealing money to cover his losses. Danny tells him to give himself up and promises to stand by his brother all the way.

McGarrett and Danny head to the school where the next victim, a public defender, is picking up her son. McGarrett calls the woman and tells her to get out of the car immediately. Moments later, he and Danny arrest the suspect.

Danny and McGarrett go to Matt’s hotel and find the FBI there and Matt gone. McGarett gives the feds a false lead and Danny heads off to find his brother. He confronts him just as Matt’s about to board a plane. Matt tells Danny, who has him at gunpoint but won’t shoot, that he couldn’t face prison and bids his brother goodbye.

Breakdown:

Seeing as the character of Danno brings so much comic relief to "Hawaii Five-0," I was hoping the appearance of his brother would ramp up the laughs, especially since he’s played by Dane Cook. No such luck.

Cook played it mostly straight as Danny’s little brother, now in big trouble. Aside from a quip about sneaking into the Stone Pony to see the Boss, the character of Matt Williams served only to provide a semi-interesting B-storyline and bring Danny a little bit closer to his ex-wife, Rachel. The scene at the end, where Matt turns away from Danny’s offer was almost humorous in its theatrics. "Loa Aloha" means "the long goodbye," and Matt’s parting words to Danny certainly fit the bill. Especially for a criminal on the run from the feds, hot on his tail.

The case of the week was satisfactory but could have been much more fleshed out if we didn’t spend so much time on Matt’s storyline. Yes, we did get to see more of Danny’s soft, sensitive side and even McGarrett got in the act, giving the feds a bogus lead to allow Danny to catch up with his brother. But I can’t help feeling like the character of Matt could have been a wee bit more fun. That’s not to say the whole hour needed to consist of twice as many wisecracks about why New Jersey is so much better than Hawaii but c’mon, this is Danny’s brother we’re talking about.

And when we’ve got two storylines running through the hour, there’s the inevitable shortcuts. Chin Ho just happens to find a letter in the suspect’s apartment containing a major clue to the next victim? Too easy.

And the hour was also lacking the intense action scenes we’ve been treated to the past few sweeps weeks. I’d say Kono did most of the heavy lifting this episode, though it was mostly digging through databases and making critical matches. Here’s hoping we get a Kono-centric episode before the season ends.